Deciding for resilience: Utilizing water infrastructure investments to prepare for the future

Pot, W.D.

doi:10.1002/wat2.1661

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 72 publications

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“…Crisis, such as floods, can help open such windows of opportunity for policy change. Other important windows of opportunity are a change of government after elections, and also the more 'planned' and foreseen moments of long-term investments in for example water infrastructure that can be utilized [21,22]. Timing can involve making an explicit connection between an acute shock (such as a flood) and the underlying issue of climate change.…”

Section: Temporal Strategies For Dual Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

When, at what speed, and how? Resilient transformation of the Vesdre river basin (Belgium) following the 2021 floods

de Goër de Herve,

Pot

2024

Environ Sci Eur

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Background Dual crises happen when an acute shock unfolds in the context of a creeping crisis. The July 2021 floods in the Vesdre river basin (Wallonia, Belgium) is a typical case of such dual crises in the context of climate change. This study is based on 16 semi-structured interviews (conducted in Spring 2023) with 10 mayors, 4 representatives of the Public Service of Wallonia, 1 person working for the federal government, and 4 project managers, coupled with a document analysis (n = 13). It investigates the temporal strategies that connect short and long-term considerations in the aftermath of this disaster (timing, futuring, pacing, cyclical adaptation, and determining time horizons), at two different governmental levels: river basin and municipal level. Results In general, the window of opportunity to improve disaster resilience has been seized. Several studies were initiated by the Walloon region that shape the idea of an ideal future for the river basin and give recommendations for how to reach it. Unfortunately, those recommendations still come late compared to the temporal reality of the reconstruction process. Municipalities wish to strengthen disaster resilience as soon as possible, but they have to prioritize certain actions over others because of limited resources. The recommendations are considered flexible enough to adapt strategies to future contexts, but no monitoring and evaluation system for doing so has been implemented so far. In addition, clear policy agendas with transformational goals are scarce, and they diverge between the river basin and the municipalities. All these temporal strategies are shaped by elements of the institutional policy arrangement: resources, which affect them all, as well as actors, power, and formal rules, which affect some. These policy dimensions notably slow down the implementation of disaster resilience strategies and limit the determination of consensual time horizons. Conclusions The temporal strategies are passively shaped by the policy arrangement dimensions to a greater extent than actively chosen by the stakeholders. A structural transformation of the institutional policy arrangement is therefore needed to enable more coherent temporal strategies between different governance levels and to facilitate the consideration of long-term resilience during the recovery process from disasters.

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Section: Temporal Strategies For Dual Crisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

When, at what speed, and how? Resilient transformation of the Vesdre river basin (Belgium) following the 2021 floods

de Goër de Herve,

Pot

2024

Environ Sci Eur

Self Cite

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An analysis framework for stationary and nonstationary sediment load frequency in a changing climate

Yang,

Qin,

Chen

2024

Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess

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Avoiding future surprises after acute shocks: long-term flood risk lessons catalysed by the 2021 summer flood in the Netherlands

Pot,

de Ridder,

Dewulf

2024

Environ Sci Eur

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In summer 2021, the Dutch Province of Limburg faced an acute high-water event caused by two days of heavy rainfall, resulting in €383 million worth of damage. Afterwards, various policy actors organised a number of evaluations. This study analyses these evaluations and the long-term lessons drawn from this flood event. Dealing with climate change requires insights into how lessons from acute shocks such as floods can stimulate the anticipation of climate change and solutions that can cope with future extremes. This study therefore applies policy learning theory—single, double and triple loop learning—to different layers of flood safety to analyse the extent to which governments prepare for future events and how.The results show that pre-2021 water and flood risk management policies—our point of comparison to derive what lessons emerge after the 2021 flood—focused mostly on flood prevention (layer 1) and from 1996 onwards with the start of the Room for the River programme also on spatial planning (layer 2), without paying much attention to crisis management (layer 3). Based on the 2021 flood, the official evaluation committee recommends adding two more layers to the multilayer flood safety approach: increasing water awareness (layer 0 as a base layer for the other layers) and focusing on climate-robust recovery after floods (layer 4) to improve long-term robustness. Based on our research, triple-loop learning as the deepest type of learning appeared in the form of applying the Room for the River approach to the tributary brooks systems. To prepare for the future, policy evaluations recommend improving stress tests to better deal with climate change. Futures scenarios and visions for the future are also recommended. Creating future visions can help to steer changes in existing land use and re-think areas to build or to use for water retention, for example. Governments are advised to strengthen their anticipatory capacities as part of their crisis management response and recovery systems. Furthermore, governments will need to apply the different layers for multilayer safety in an integrated way to ensure that regions are able to prepare for future floods.

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Deciding for resilience: Utilizing water infrastructure investments to prepare for the future

Cited by 4 publications

References 72 publications

When, at what speed, and how? Resilient transformation of the Vesdre river basin (Belgium) following the 2021 floods

When, at what speed, and how? Resilient transformation of the Vesdre river basin (Belgium) following the 2021 floods

An analysis framework for stationary and nonstationary sediment load frequency in a changing climate

Avoiding future surprises after acute shocks: long-term flood risk lessons catalysed by the 2021 summer flood in the Netherlands

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